Texas Constitutions 1824 - 1876

Capstone Project

The Docket

• Project Origin and User Group• Collection Contents• Collection Analysis• Planning• Development

Origin of the Collection

The project was funded by two $20,000 “TexTreasures” grants awarded

by the Texas State Library and Archives commission

1st grant: Awarded in 1999 for the purpose of digitizing 13 early Texas constitutions and declarations, creating a website to house them, and publishing them online.

2nd grant: Application submitted in 2002. The purpose of this grant was to fund the digitization of convention materials for 8 of the constitutions, creating reliable indices and making links in the collection.

User Group

Target user group is unspecified…

Goal 1: “To make important Texas historical and legal material readily accessible to members of the public.”

Goal 2: “To make unique Special Collections materials available to users at institutions throughout the state.”

Goal 4: “To make information… available to library users across the state.”

Goal 5: “To enhance the education of a wide range of library users.”

Objective 3: “Enable users with disabilities to access the versions of the Texas Constitution and convention materials without difficulty.

Objectives of project closely match the interests of Texas State Library Commission, the project’s sponsor.

Contents

The collection is made up of 13 core documents.

Eight of these documents have material relating to the conventions in which they were drafted. Convention materials are stored as PDFs and are fully cross- referenced with their primary documents.

Documents exist both as plain text coded into HTML pages and JPEG images. Pages displaying the images are linked from pages containing plain text.

The Documents

Mexican Constitutions

The first three documents of the collection are the Mexican Constitutions by which Texas was governed before its independence:

– 1. Federal Constitution of the United States of Mexico (1824)

– 2. The Constitution of the State of Coahuila and Texas (1827)

– 3. Constitution or Form of Government of the State of Texas (1833)

The collection contains images of the original Spanish documents. The plain text HTML rendering has been translated into English. By whom is not known, citation is not given.

Independence

The three 1836 documents pertain to Texan revolt and sovereignty. These are the documents of the wartime government, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the new Republic:

– 4. Declaration, with Plan and Powers of the Provisional Government of Texas (1836)• Ordinances and Decrees of the Consultation

– 5. Declaration of Independence (1836)

– 6. The Constitution of the Republic of Texas (1836)• Journals of the Convention, 1836

The Declaration of Independence is a single page with just one image. The Declaration with Plan and Powers has multiple articles spread across just 3 pages.

Admission to US and Secession

First constitutions as part of the United States.

– 7. The Constitution of Texas (1845) Joining the U.S

• Journal of the Convention, 1845• Debates of the Convention, 1845

– 8. The Constitution of Texas (1861) Seceding from the U.S

• Journals of the Convention, 1861

– 9. The Constitution of Texas (1866) Rejoining the U.S.

• Journals of the Convention, 1866

Reconstruction

Readmission to the Union and reconstruction of Government. Also included is a proposed constitution for a State of West Texas.

– 10. The Constitution of the State of West Texas (1868)• Ordinances passed by the Constitutional Convention, 1868

– 11. The Constitution of Texas (1869) Reconstruction Constitution

• Journals of the Reconstruction Convention, 1868

– 12. The Constitution of Texas (1876)• Journals of the Convention, 1875• Debates of the Convention, 1875

Index and Keyword Search

A subject index exists that cross-references all constitutions. It con-tains dozens of subject headings and is organized alphabetically.

Users can search the collection by keyword. An off-site application crawls both html pages and PDF materials.

Convention materials tend to be ranked above constitutions, suggesting that search does not normalize document length effectively.

Navigational Bar with External Materials

Navigation of the collection is displayedon the left side of the browser window.

Many of these links lead to informationthat is redundant or external to the collection.

Phase 1: Analysis

To best analyze the contents of the Texas Constitutions collection I created diagrams illustrating the organization of each document.

Every document is organized somewhatdifferently. The diagrams help visualizeeach organization scheme and marchimage pages with text pages.

The task of mapping allowed meto identify irregularities in the collection’s organizational system.

Observations

- Organizational Structure of existing collection is sound.~ Fragmenting documents by sections and articles is preferable to viewing whole document.~ Functionality of indices is dependant upon current organizational structure.

- Images should be displayed alongside text.~ Bandwidth no longer the constraint that it had been.

- Improvement of navigation a top priority.~ Existing navigation not useful for viewing collection~ Collection navigation accessed through special pages (table of contents, index) rather than appearing on all pages.

Phase 2: Planning

Mock ups – I wanted to emphasize navigation with the new design. I introduced a sustained border across the top and left-hand side of the window that contains the user’s navigational options.

I also included theTarlton banner and the UT tower banner to provide a sense for the amount of screen space givento administrative functions.

Navigation and DisplayLinks to the index pages are arrayedalphabetically across the header.

The user can navigatebetween documents usingthe links displayed onthe left-side nav bar.

A table of contents couldbe produced dynamically with Javascript. Display JPEG images

alongside plain text.

Constructing a Database

One of the original goals of this project was to migrate the Texas Constitutions collection into a database and make its content dynamic. Several advantages can be gained from doing this:

– More Flexibility: It’s easier to update and change certain parts of the collection without affecting the whole.

– Automatic cross-referencing: A relational database allows the system to make connections between entities.

– Ability to customize server-side applications that are right for the collection: We could create a better search application.

While a database offers more capabilities, the cost of implementing them is high.

.

Entity Relationship Diagram

This diagram illustrates howI would connect tables inthe collection’s database.

All elements in the collectiondepend on concatenatedkeys: document and page.I separated these into dif-ferent tables to meet 2nd

normal form. Since remain-ing relations were many-to-many, I sequestered all other elements to special tables and connected them with thePages foreign key.

Phase 3: Development

Display

• Create Title page

• Code new page style

• Build Javascript menus forTables of Contents

• Embed JPEG images into pages

• Create magnifying function (optional)

• Migrate Information

.

Organization

• Build string parser to collect data from index

• Migrate page and image names into database manually

• Create a PHP application that queries database and generates HTML

• Create PHP program that collects user’s search queries, queries database to find term occurrence and ranks returns.

The Database Question…

Is a database right for this collection or are the benefits it offers redundant?

Is it worth the time and resources to make one?

Display

Is it helpful to have images displayed alongside text?

Is too much screen space devoted to administrative tools?

Do the visuals need more pop? Too bland?

Suggestions?